Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a single-player medieval open-world RPG by Warhorse Studios. It is the story of Henry, a son of a blacksmith in Bohemia in the Holy Roman Empire in the year 1403. Henry's family is killed in a raid by a warring faction amid fighting over the throne. Henry is an average medieval villager, not a nobleman or hero. In the course of his adventure, he must learn to fight, craft, sneak and read along with other skills that don't come by some birthright. He is not some Dragonborn or a high and mighty Lord. Every little step of the social ladder has to be earned the hard way.

The game seems to be a pretty hard core simulation of medieval life in many ways. Food and sleep are needed for survival, but food is not in shortage. The combat system is unforgiving and requires practice from the player, not just boosting of stats and wild swinging like many other games. Not exactly similar to Dark Souls, but the term "Git gud" may as well apply here.

The combat system has drawn praise from some practicioners of historical european martial arts or HEMA for authentic stances, defences and animations. You must read your opponent's sword movements and timing to directionally block or parry effectively. Each hit eats into the player's stamina before health starts to drop. Armor plays a more realistic role than most games. You need to identify weak spots if you want to do any damage and even the visor of your helmet affects things like vision in a big way. Overall, the combat system seems impressive but demanding for the player. If you suck at it (practice more and get better), there are options to play a more diplomatic character and avoid many conflicts by talking, backstabbing or even covertly poisoning people with your hand-crafted potions sprinkled into their food while nobody is watching.

The crafting is detailed, logical and based on realism. You can pick herbs and brew them in a cauldron according to a recipe book and make potions that can offer some benefit or weaken the drinker in some way. Alcohol also plays a big role in both brewing potions and the game in general. Other crafting includes at least the ability to sharpen your sword or ruin it by being clumsy with the sharpening tools. You get the idea.

There are many different playstyles for the game, for example you could avoid close combat in favor of archery and be a sneaky thief, but your reputation may suffer if you are caught during burglary, or if you show up in town wearing bloody garments. Even the condition of your clothing affects how people react to your presence. A knightly armor may make people treat you like you are an actual knight, dress like a peasant and get treated like one. The people in the villages live their daily lives and go about their business while the main character rides around investigating murders, helping people or being a bandit, whichever you prefer. Larger battles and castle sieges take place in the storyline also.

The area the game takes place in is modelled after reality, with actual castles, churches, monasteries and other features copied from their historic counterparts in Bohemia. Realism and attention to detail are impressive throughout the game, this is not a typical fantasy game but a genuinely historical one. There is a fast travel option if you get sick of riding your horse around. The horses are also pack animals, you can load your stuff on them if you're tired of carrying supplies. Some horses are better than others in terms of speed, combat or other stats.

I have avoided spoilers and Beta gameplay videos for the most part, many of the videos on youtube feature a Beta version of the game that does not represent the final product.

The graphics are good, the game is built on a version of Crytek's engine and the details are gorgeous, or actually muddy and bloody as the time period would suggest. Look up the requirements for the game before buying, the Beta was apparently pretty harsh in terms of performance and requirements. The final version is reputed to run much more smoothly than the Beta did.

I find the game to be ambitious in design and full of neat ideas, without having played it yet I have bought it on Steam and will try it out.

The game is out for XBox One, Playstation 4 and PC on February 13th, 2018.

Oh, almost forgot: The game features BRIAN BLESSED as a voice actor!!!!!!!!. (!)

For discussion about the lead developer's personality and views and if you want to make a purchase decision based on your opinions about him, read the first few pages at least. Personally I have bought the game already and will judge it based on its merits, follow your own judgement since it's your money to spend as you see fit. Also ask yourself before posting; will this post improve the discussion in the thread or not? Thank you.

There are links in my post to a youtube let's player's affiliate discount of 13% on Gamesplanet. You can find the links by following breadcrumbs on page 7, I won't post the direct link here for now. I am not familiar with Gamesplanet, can not comment on how the site is.

Goon impressions from videos:

Lol game looks jank as hell - Phi230

This is gonna be just like a Bethseda game, the community is gonna have to mod it into working right. Glad I skipped the KS. -Skoll

looks pretty garbage tbh -frajaq

Updated impressions as of Feb 12th, 2018, day before release: Don't rush to buy this yet, if you're on the fence, stay on the fence and do your due diligence in finding out different opinions on the game. Looks janky, judging from videos. Might be boring, depending on opinion. I will update with more info as it comes, but will be moving house in between.

Op's personal first impressions as of Feb 13th, launch day: Slow pacing, lots of dialogue cutscenes in the early part of game. Needs a quicksave key or unlimited Saviour's Schnapps modded in.Jankyness at times. Runs acceptably so far on my nvidia 1060 with high settings at full screen 1920*1080. Divisive game at best, had higher hopes before release. I won't have time to play or update the page for many days.

Other opinions vary, many are very negative so read reviews before thinking of buying.

Goon impressions on day one:

I was definitely looking forward to this game. Obviously the whole internet went on in worshiping this game. Luckily we goons are a little more skeptical than the average low life redditor. This game promises a lot if it manages to get fixed a bit and picked up by the modding community. Only the time will tell. -RattiRatto

There are a lot of loading screens in this game, christ.
I'm not overly impressed but I'm not unimpressed either. The story seems pretty good, at least at the start, and they seem to have changed a few small complaints at least. -DreamShipWrecked

This game doesnít even have interesting writing to hold up the terrible gameplay
this is garbage -Themage

Goon impressions as of Feb 14th seem far more positive:

So far I've played for an hour or so. I'm enjoying it. I have to be on 1080p with the lowest possible settings but it's a good game. I'm glad I backed it. -Beer4TheBeerGod

Played this at a friends house and was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it.
Will still wait for sales + save anywhere/quick save mods -frajaq

This game is kind of cute and feel good. I like it so far. -Empress Brosephine

game is real bad and lags every 20 seconds for at least 2 seconds gg -KyloWinter

Here is my review from two hours of play: I've not experienced any bugs besides one crash. My system is strictly middle of the road and getting 60 FPS on high settings. Game is fun. Best Medieval Bohemia Village Mugging and Burglary Simulator i've ever played. -Diogines

Goon collective opinion: Game is great

precision says:
Henry literally can't perform all the sword moves until you get a second sword lesson. Really ought to beeline to that objective because it also will level you up quickly.

Save games capped at 300
Someone has reported that the game won't let you save after you've got 300 saves. Take backups of all your saves, remove all saves except your latest one. Now go in-game and load that save, delete it from the load menu and then save. It should be labeled as "Save 1" now.

This has been reported without the mod as well, but at a lesser amount of saves. Right now I do not believe the mod causes this, but it might make the effect happen sooner.

Just a friendly reminder to anyone using the mod (or maybe in general because the main game may have a similar issue?) - back up the saves manually every once in awhile.

The people I've seen play it on youtube videos (skallagrim and Lady Lilia for example) have liked it, so there is that. Again, the videos are of the Beta, a few years old version I think. But I will post my own impressions here some time after the game launches. I need to get my new apartment sorted out before then, so I can't drop in immediately.

Does he eventually become some sort of military officer with capability of leadership, or do you always kind of fight for yourself?

The way they pitched it umpteenth years ago was that he's just present due to politics and stuff at some of the larger battles. I think they were aiming for less of the rise from no one to godhood TES syndrome, but who knows at this point.

Does he eventually become some sort of military officer with capability of leadership, or do you always kind of fight for yourself?

As far as I know, you are pretty low in rank throughout the game, but do take part in larger battles with allies on your side. You could become a squire I believe, in service of a lord. Much remains to be seen.

I have come across some remarks about controversies regarding the main character being male and everybody in the game being white europeans, but I don't get what the problem is if the game aims for historical realism in those regards. If the lead dev dabbles in historical re-enactments of vikings that does not mean he's automatically some nazi sympathizer either. Seems like there's a risk of jumping into conclusions, as is commonplace on the net. I will give the benefit of the doubt since I don't know either way what the details of that are. There was also some chatter about DLC content where a female lead character might get introduced if the game sold well or something. Can not confirm or deny that one.

In that time period, women would have been in a radically different role in society than nowadays, and Europe in general was not racially diverse either. If you had been of middle eastern appearance or such, you'd probably get skewered for suspicion of being a "Heathen Saracen", I'd think.

Now, if you had a game taking place 10,000 years ago the ethnicities would have been wildly different again, with dark skinned blue eyed Europeans running around. Sometimes I wish there was a game that portrayed prehistory accurately, but that is another discussion. There was a fascinating discovery recently of British prehistoric people that goes into detail about dark skin having been common in the ice age or post-ice age Europe. Us "whites" are recent mutants it seems. And we have Neanderthals in our ancestral family tree. Cross-breeding, aww yiss. Makes the racists all the more ignorant, doesn't it?

Anyways, I hope the game is good. Not trying to derail the conversation in any form. I'd appreciate if the discussion remains civil and factual as much as possible.

from a few videos of the beta I've seen, there's plenty of open world stuff to do, houses to rob, people to kill, lots of sidequests, etc

I hope an archer build is viable in this game, the devs have said so much about the melee combat system that I'm worried they made ranged stuff poo poo to force the players to go melee most of the time

Is this game mostly story mode, or is there a good time to be had open worlding with random quests or people to axe?

You have the option to run off and do whatever you want it seems. Following the main quest seems optional, but there may be consequences if you don't do as you're told. So, yeah it's story driven but do what rocks your boat, dude. You can role play different versions of the main character as you please. The other characters go on without you if you choose not to follow their lead.

Edit:
I phrased that poorly. You can develop your character in any direction you choose, and the quests have a life of their own whether you investigate them in person or not.

SlightlyMad fucked around with this message at Feb 9, 2018 around 14:27

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation. I actually named my daughter after the Pink ranger and will provide proof if challenged.

If by a massive loser you mean he's not a power fantasy character, you're absolutely right. An ordinary man who has to become a fighter and avenge his family. Not a superhero by any means. Might be refreshing to play an average joe for a change.

Here is a video describing the political background of the game setting, for anyone who is a fan of Crusader Kings 2 or just want to learn a few minutes of Holy Roman Empire history.

Didn't these guys catch a bunch of poo poo for only having white people in their game? But historically there extremely few POCs in the region so it's actually accurate?

I dunno, but I seem to remember reading an article once that in urban areas at least, probably even more so in eastern Europe, there would have been more ethnic diversity then we tend to think. With plenty of traders and travelers from surprisingly far away.

its accurate but the lead-dev specifically is "alt-right" and made it way worse than it ever had to be through his own response to the criticism

Heís an alt right gamergater so people are hesitant to give money or the benefit of the doubt to a transparently bad person.

The whole historical realism argument for not including women thing also doesnít really withstand any kind of scrutiny because the game already isnít realistic on a number of fronts, the portrayal of combat probably the biggest offender. This game does not depict anything resembling actual 14th century combat. So you have to ask yourself why is that (pretty significant) historical inaccuracy okay but not, say, playable women?

Heís an alt right gamergater so people are hesitant to give money or the benefit of the doubt to a transparently bad person.

The whole historical realism argument for not including women thing also doesnít really withstand any kind of scrutiny because the game already isnít realistic on a number of fronts, the portrayal of combat probably the biggest offender. This game does not depict anything resembling actual 14th century combat. So you have to ask yourself why is that historical inaccuracy okay but not another?

Hey I think its lovely too but apparently they said the Female Character will be a post-release thing they had to cut during development to meet deadlines last I heard. Could be a bullshit tho

For me this is basically hinging all on how much of a "living" world it is, if poo poo can happen without my involvement then I can put up with a lot of jank and "historicity as defined by a larper". I have a shrine to space rangers 2 in my house

For me this is basically hinging all on how much of a "living" world it is, if poo poo can happen without my involvement then I can put up with a lot of jank and "historicity as defined by a larper". I have a shrine to space rangers 2 in my house

You're in luck. The world building seems good from what I've seen. The villagers do chores, go to work, relax at taverns in the evening and all that.

I don't know if the developer is a wingnut or not, whatever money I have spent on the game goes to more than one man in a team of dozens of people so whatever, as far as I am concerned. I doubt the problem is company wide even if it would turn out the lead developer is some kind of bad apple.

If someone knows how common it was for middle-eastern or other travellers to have travelled to Bohemia, do share. I would find the historical perspective to be interesting. In the middle ages I think there would have been prejudice towards "Saracens" since even the jewish populations were treated horribly over the centuries and they wouldn't probably have stood out all that much from the general populace. Europe has a long history of atrocities. I have seen period drawings depicting people with dark skin in fairly ordinary circumstances, so it can't have been completely unheard of. Rare, but not 100% one way.

As for women characters, does anyone know more about that supposed DLC that may feature a female lead? There was also a funny story I read about some bagpipe playing woman in the middle ages who got paid every day for NOT playing in a tavern. She retired rich. My idol.